Author: MrFireStation

Insurance is one of the things I certainly hate paying for. Health insurance, disability insurance, life insurance, and car insurance are all necessary to a degree, but it’s hard to pay for something you only use in a catastrophe. We’ve gradually dialed back our insurance coverage for things we can ‘self-insure’ the risk of. We have the highest health insurance deductible we’ve ever had and … Continue reading Up, Up And Insured

Today, our son joins the world of full-time work after graduating from college last weekend. He’s starting work in software/web development at a great company that he was an intern at last summer. Last night we were talking about the business and the fun of working on businesses challenges. I’ve been early retired for over 4 years at this point, but have always loved the … Continue reading Edgar Guest – ‘It Couldn’t Be Done’

People are doing all kinds of things to improve themselves during the pandemic and ‘Great Lockdown’. They are learning new skills, taking up interesting hobbies, and trying to improve their fitness. One effort I am making is to read more books. I recently saw a news report that if you read just a half hour a day, you will be 1,600 books smarter throughout your … Continue reading Summer Family Reading Club

We are very proud of our son who graduated from college this past weekend with his degree in computer science. He finished ‘on-time’ – completing his studies 4 years after first walking through these arches as a Freshman. He’s all set to start working a week from today as a software/web developer at a local software company. He interned there last summer and got a … Continue reading Post-College ‘Raise’?

Back on March 27th, I made the playful ‘Much To Early Prediction’ to friends (and in this POST) that the pandemic market crash had bottomed out. The DJIA had fallen to 18,214 on the afternoon of March 23rd. This was long before the worst of the pandemic had hit the US or the world yet, but so far the optimistic outlook has paid off as … Continue reading Is The Pandemic Bear Sleeping?

A friend recently spent 8 hours (and a $19.95 fee) taking an online ‘Safe Driving’ program through his insurance company. It was offered to people over 55 for an $80 reduction in their annual insurance premium for a number of future years. He told me when they were in the middle of taking the class and I thought, ‘no thanks’. Not enough juice for the … Continue reading What’s Your Time Worth In Early Retirement?

I’ve written before that for me, social media plays a very positive role in early retirement for keeping in touch with people. I’m pretty tech-involved and use a number of different platforms – Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, and LinkedIn – in pretty different ways and different amounts of engagement. Related: Social Media in FIRE The one platform that I use the least is LinkedIn. My … Continue reading Hardly Linked to LinkedIn Anymore